


Necessary Evils

by downtheroadandupthehill



Category: Breaking Bad, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug Dealing, Drug Use, Gun Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-07 16:51:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtheroadandupthehill/pseuds/downtheroadandupthehill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And the product is good, better than good. Grantaire smokes a tiny bit once they’ve finished the first batch, just a quick hit. He feels fucking spectacular for a few glorious moments until Enjolras emerges from the RV, grabs his shoulder and starts to shake him. Grantaire can feel his fingernails dig into flesh, knows he’ll be left with little crescent shaped red marks in his skin. He’s almost ready to arch into that harsh grasp when—</p><p>“Don’t touch the fucking product,” Enjolras tells him, his voice like barbed wire and concrete. “We sell it; we don’t smoke it. And I won’t let you be high out of your mind when we work together.”</p><p>That wrenches a laugh from Grantaire. What the hell did you expect? Instead, he asks, “Are you sure you majored in poli-sci in college and not chemistry?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It begins when he falls from a window. Grantaire tries to climb out, reaches out gingerly with his feet to find purchase on the grass, but his fingers slip from the sill, and down he goes. He manages not to cry out, which would defeat the purpose of this entire climbing-out-windows escapade in the first place. There are DEA agents on the other side of the house, so the back bedroom window seemed like his best shot. It’s not his house, no one needs to know he was here. A free high and a few hundred dollars to help his friends sell their shitty product on the street—it seemed worth it, but definitely  _not_  worth ending up on the DEA’s radar.

 

He falls into a graceful sort of crouch, rather impressive considering the embarrassing fall. Pauses, to regain his breath (smoker’s lungs, after all, black with tar and shriveled to nearly nothing, he expects), and a shadow falls over him. A distinctly person-shaped shadow. Grantaire assumes he is done for, swallows, and looks up, all the possible lies and excuses already forming themselves on the tip of his tongue.

And those disappear all at once when he catches sight of the Greek-god-come-to-earth right in front of him, looking down at him with a combination of amusement and disdain. Blond curls almost to his shoulders, pink  _pink_  lips that appear as though they might  _almost_  curve upward at Grantaire’s predicament. The sort of straight spine and tilt to his chin that tells Grantaire that this man definitely did not grow up in places like this, alongside people like him.

“Hello,” the gorgeous stranger drawls.

“Um, hi,” Grantaire replies, in a voice hoarse with fear and exhaustion.

“Did we go to high school together?”

Grantaire doesn’t remember much of high school—he skipped classes most days, drank through the ones he attended, and somehow stumbled out of the place after four years with a diploma he’d barely hung onto. But something about the man seems familiar (and soulmates in another life is more than unlikely) and despite all his hopes of art and travel, he hasn’t moved in these four years  _since_  high school, so this guy recognizing him from there seems at least plausible. “I think I’d remember you if we did,” he says. “Well, maybe.”

(He’s still crouching at the man’s feet and something about that feels surreal, but appropriate.)

He plucks at the grass around his shoes, studies the ground instead of the stranger.

“I’m Enjolras.”

“Grantaire.”

They don’t shake hands, and Grantaire finally pulls himself upright and standing. From this angle, Enjolras is even prettier, and Grantaire feels conscious of the dark smudges around his own eyes, days of stubble on his cheeks, and the stink of smoke and chemicals sticking to his clothes.

Enjolras almost seems to be sizing him up, and Grantaire looks right back at him, now, regardless of how unsteady his gaze is. He pulls the sleeves of his hoodies down over his palms nervously, out of habit, not that is matters—the bruises like withered violets across the white undersides of his arms were already hidden from view.

“Is this the part where you arrest me?”

“I took a ride-along with Agent Javert,” Enjolras says, which pointedly does not answer Grantaire’s question. “I have a poli-sci degree, told him I’m interested in drug law and enforcement. My roommates and I built a meth lab in our dorm room closet, junior year of college, you know. Just to see if we could—right under the nose of our tyrannical R.A.”

Grantaire only blinks, wonders if he should’ve smoked a little less today, what sort of strange hallucination this could be.

“I have a good feeling about you, Grantaire.” The man’s voice is serious, too serious, and maybe this is all some practical joke from Feuilly, to make Grantaire think he’d get laid or something equally ridiculous.

If all of Enjolras’s good feelings had somehow led him here, to a fuck-up like Grantaire for whatever fucked-up reason, there must be something very  _wrong_ , right?

“Walk with me,” Enjolras continues. “Or let’s get away from here before any officers show up, shall we? I have a proposition of sorts for you.”

…..

They buy an RV. Well, Grantaire buys an RV, because despite all of Enjolras’s name-brand clothes and regal bearing, he’s basically broke, apparently.  _Student loans and all that_ , Enjolras had said, and shrugged. But the venture would be more than worth it, he promised, and Grantaire would be more than paid back.

The RV is a piece of shit. There’s no poetic way to put it, but at least it runs, gets them where they need to go out in the middle of the goddamn desert to cook the best crystal meth in the tri-state area. Or that’s what Enjolras had assured him they’d be cooking.

And the product is  _good_ , better than good. Grantaire smokes a tiny bit once they’ve finished the first batch, just a quick hit. He feels fucking  _spectacular_ for a few glorious moments until Enjolras emerges from the RV, grabs his shoulder and starts to shake him. Grantaire can feel his fingernails dig into flesh, knows he’ll be left with little crescent shaped red marks in his skin. He’s almost ready to arch into that harsh grasp when—

“Don’t touch the fucking product,” Enjolras tells him, his voice like barbed wire and concrete. “We sell it; we don’t smoke it. And I won’t let you be high out of your mind when we work together.”

That wrenches a laugh from Grantaire.  _What the hell did you expect_? Instead, he asks, “Are you sure you majored in poli-sci in college and not chemistry?”

Enjolras purses his lips—he’s still unhappy with Grantaire, and now further perturbed at the change of subject. “My roommate was the chemist. I just learned from him. His interest was more academic, so we never sold a thing.”

That makes no sense to Grantaire, but he nods and smiles and pretends to understand. He probably looks deranged as he does so, and maybe he is deranged, out here in the middle of desert following this guy he barely knows simply because he has the body of Apollo and the face of Aphrodite. It’s enough to make him sick to stomach, but the pressure of Enjolras’s fingers is still bruising his shoulder, and that, Grantaire considers, feels all right.

…..

The money starts rolling in, and Grantaire has no trouble paying his share of rent for the first time in three years. He even buys himself proper groceries. The rest of his share of the cash he hides in board game boxes in the back of his closet, while the board games themselves get thrown in the trash. He buys good weed and a new bong, because Enjolras doesn’t want a drug-addled fool for a partner and that’s understandable—but then why come to Grantaire at all? But it’s the high that matter, not the means of acquiring it, and if Enjolras is going to get on his case for smoking something as harmless as marijuana, then  _fuck him_ , Grantaire thinks.

The smoke in his lungs is as hot and tight as the lie in his mind and he holds his breath.

They don’t talk about their  _real_ lives to one another, the people who they have to keep secrets from. Or at least Grantaire assumes that Enjolras has secrets. Maybe he lives with his parents, or maybe he lives with a few perfectly respectably employed individuals. Or maybe he has a girlfriend or a boyfriend. People he can’t discuss their little desert excursions with.

Grantaire does not have anyone like that.

But he has Feuilly and Jehan and so he isn’t entirely alone. They help him sell their product on the street, and most importantly, they’re smart, they don’t get caught.

“So is this mysterious meth partner hot?” Feuilly asks, and lights a cigarette on blue flame from the stove.

Grantaire chokes and starts to cough, and the smoke is expelled from his chest in an ugly cloud.

Jehan starts to write sonnets about them, Grantaire and the “mysterious meth partner,” and Grantaire doesn’t even bother to try and discourage him.

…..

A new deal is struck, this one with Patron-Minette. They did not exactly appreciate a few upstarts selling better meth than theirs in their own established. But Grantaire and Enjolras have _value_ , Enjolras tells their ringleader, Thenardier. Meanwhile, Grantaire sits by and watches with burning eyes. Another of the thugs has taken his Glock, and even though Grantaire has never had to fire it, he feels naked without it, especially now that Enjolras is in danger.

(His own safety hardly matters.)

But Enjolras has a tongue dipped in silver, and both of them find new employment in the bowels of Patron-Minette, cooking their high quality product for the gang in larger volumes than ever before, and making a larger profit, too.

They keep Grantaire on the streets, slinging it alongside Babet and Claquesous. The pair watches him for any sign of treachery or deceit, and Grantaire stops working high. He’s not a total idiot—he knows better than to fuck with his senses when he might be killed at any second.

Enjolras, for his part, makes loud protests about their placements.

“Grantaire is my partner. We cook together.”

Thenardier doesn’t listen, and Enjolras won’t shut up. Grantaire is not in the habit of telling Enjolras what to do, but now he tries to, hushes him, tells him he’s fine where he is and everything is fine. Enjolras glares at him, but at least he’s looking at Grantaire, and Grantaire has missed that.

One of Patron-Minette’s own becomes Enjolras’s new cooking aide. Montparnasse. He’s almost as pretty as Enjolras, with elegant limbs and shiny dark hair, a snide smile and a malicious wink reserved just for Grantaire.

Grantaire tries and fails to quell the jealousy that rises in his throat like bile. He aches to stick a needle in his arm, but  _he needs to be worth something, needs to keep Enjolras safe,_  so he smokes more cigarettes instead.

They rarely see each other, and phone calls become more dangerous. Grantaire should be afraid for his life, but all he’s haunted by are nightmares of Enjolras, writhing with pleasure underneath a smirking, bloody-lipped Montparnasse.

…..

“They aren’t fucking.”

Grantaire crosses his arms, and turns around. All he wants to do is go home, rewatch  _Lord of the Rings_  and get high until he falls asleep. Not be followed there by this shadow of a girl. Her arms are covered in bruises like his used to be. Thenardier’s daughter. He wonders if she’s been sent to kill him, but if she has, she’s clearly an awful assassin.

“What?”

“They aren’t fucking. ‘Parnasse and your beautiful blond cook. ‘Parnasse wishes they were, but they aren’t. I can tell you’re head over heels for him, you know.” She’s smiling dreamily and her eyes are glazed, and Grantaire cannot even fathom what sort of cocktail she’s injected into her veins today, cannot even fathom what she could have access to, as the daughter of the region’s most important drug lord. He can’t imagine the things she’s seen and heard that make her fuck herself up like this.

(They’re almost the same, Grantaire and Eponine, they can’t hide the wounds of the things they’ve done and seen. Dragged by thorny leashes behind men they can’t abandon—one by blood and one by love.)

“Do you want to come to my place for a bit?” he asks her. “Going to have a movie marathon.”

“I’m not going to fuck you,” she growls.

He tries to smile at her, but the expression feels strange and foreign to his features—probably resembles more of a grimace, in the end.

“I wouldn’t want you to,” he says, and starts walking again.

Catlike, Eponine continues to follow him.

…..

Eponine has never questioned her own loyalty to her father, but Eponine has never had a friend before, either. She likes sleeping on his couch, and sometimes even crawling into his bed with him until they curl around one another like kittens. He doesn’t try to touch her, not like the rest of her father’s employees do, and when they wake up in the morning or at two in the afternoon, he makes them French toast to share.

It’s a shame her father wants him dead in the end, him and his golden boy wonder both, and she tells him so.

Grantaire goes pale, chokes on his bite of syrup-drenched French toast.

Eponine presses her index finger to his lips, gives him a nod loaded with meaning.

…..

He risks a phone call to Enjolras, who has been suspecting a similar thing for a while.

“But I didn’t want to worry you,” he murmurs.

(Grantaire realizes how much he missed the sound of his voice.)

The puzzle pieces fit together crookedly, but they fit nonetheless. Patron-Minette wants to corner the market on the high-grade meth, and they need Enjolras to cook it for them. But Enjolras is a leader, a free-thinker, and that simply will not do.

“And you’re too dedicated to me to try and make you into one of theirs,” Enjolras adds, matter-of-factly. Grantaire winces, but no one is around to see.

So, Montparnasse, who is smart but not overly so, was probably assigned to learn the recipe and the process from working with Enjolras. Then Enjolras could be eliminated, and as for Grantaire, well, he’d just be one more Person Who Knew Too Much, so he would be eliminated, too.

“He’s going to be able to cook on his own, soon. But we have to make Thenardier think that he needs us, regardless. Buy some more time.”

……

A few days later he gets the call, a few days ahead of schedule.

Enjolras screams the street address into the phone, and in the background, Grantaire hears a gruffer voice:

“You little fucking shit,” and it’s Thenardier. The line goes silent as they are disconnected.

Grantaire can’t breathe—it’s his heart in his throat, choking off his air supply—he can’t  _can’t breathe_  and he’s never felt so afraid as he does now, imagining his Enjolras with the muzzle of a gun pressed to his head, through soft yellow curls. He wants to retch onto his living room floor, but he knows that time is an important factor here.

He grabs his handgun off of the coffee table with trembling hands, shoves it into the waistband of his jeans. Feuilly’s car keys, too. Feuilly scrounged and saved for that used piece of shit, but he won’t mind if Grantaire drives it, not if it’s for something this important.

(He misses when things were easier, just he and Enjolras in their busted up RV, skirting around one another in its small, ugly interior, the savor of every accidental touch. It’s been twenty-two days since he’s seen Enjolras in person, except for one day they ran into each other at the grocery store, living their  _real, normal_  lives.

They’d pretended not to know each other, but Grantaire had probably stared.)

Grantaire tries to breathe, and all he can manage are little gasps of air.

He holds too tight on the steering wheel and hopes he isn’t too late when he reaches the apartment building on the other side of town. Red brick, old, but nice, definitely an improvement over the dump that Grantaire has continued to live in, despite the thousands of dollars secreted away in his bedroom closet.

“ _Number twelve_!” Enjolras had screamed.

Grantaire shuts his car door carefully, quietly, feels for his Glock at his waist, to make sure it’s still there. The metal handle is a comforting weight, and he holds onto it for dear life. Clicks off the safety—he has to be fast.

(There’s a roaring in his ears that will not cease.)

Dingy brass numbers on the door. 12. Apartment building, neighbors too close. He’ll have to be quick about it, and he thinks of all the action movies he’s seen, how easy it is. (His hands aren’t shaking any more—they’ve never felt so steady in his life.)

He knocks. There’s a doorbell, but knocking won’t leave fingerprints. An exhalation of breath, his own.

_Remember how to breathe._

Montparnasse has not been warned, and he swings open the door. When he sees it’s Grantaire—(he doesn’t see the hand with the gun at his side, not yet)—he smirks, opens his mouth to be an asshole, most likely, to say something crude.

Grantaire does not know what happens next, can’t remember it in the few seconds after. He hears two gunshots—quiet ones, and when did he get a silencer for his gun, when did he get here,  _when_ —

Montparnasse is in the doorway, a hole in his skull and another in his torso. Must have hit an organ or two, and Grantaire can see blood from his mouth speckled across his lips.

A necessary execution that might spare him his Enjolras, who is still in the warehouse with a gun pressed to his head.

Grantaire isn’t sure when he started to cry, but his eyes are swollen and his face is wet.


	2. Chapter 2

Enjolras is safe and that’s what matters. Even marble, shaken, but alive. Grantaire reaches out, instinctively, to pat him down and search for bruises and bullet holes that aren’t there, aren’t there because Grantaire pulled through, did something right for once. He sticks his hands in his pockets to refrain from touching, and Enjolras is smiling at him.

Blood and brains on kitchen tile: red and wet and Enjolras is pleased.

But their safety is subjective. He’s bought them a week or two, but if Thenardier wants them dead he’ll see them dead, one way or another. For now they go back to work, and this time Grantaire is Enjolras’s assistant again.

They cook in silence, because they’re always watched. When no members of Patron-Minette are available to babysit, there are cameras in the corners of the ceilings to do the job for them. Talking is dangerous, but there is a conversation or two to be had, as well. Grantaire should be less surprised when Enjolras takes his arm and invites him home for dinner. Claquesous glares at them, but says nothing, keeping up the pretense of civility, as if Enjolras and Grantaire have no reason to be afraid for their lives and that this won’t be reported back to Thenardier.

Grantaire nods, swallows back his nervousness. He killed a man for Enjolras, and he doesn’t even know where the man lives. After the day’s batch of meth is done and weighed, Grantaire follows Enjolras home, out of the desert into town. The nice side of town, too. Enjolras pulls into a parking lot; Grantaire parks in the street, whistles appreciatively at the pretty red-brick apartment building. There are even flowers planted outside.

“I figured taking me home for dinner was code for something. I didn’t think you meant your actual home.”

“It’s safer here than anywhere else. Even though I did see Babet’s car across the street last night. Your place is probably being monitored, too.”

Grantaire shrugs.

“Do you still have your gun?” Enjolras asks him on the stairs.

“Not on me.” He doesn’t mention how he’d thrown it under his bed after Montparnasse, left it there. The thought of holding it again makes him nauseous, makes it hard to breathe.

“Start carrying it when you aren’t at the warehouse.”

The door to his apartment is already unlocked, and Enjolras lets them both in. Inside, clean white walls, stain-free carpet—it’s spacious too, something that Grantaire never would have been able to afford in his old life and doesn’t want to bother with now. An expensive leather sofa takes up one wall, and two men are lounging there, one reclining with his head in the other’s lap. They turn to look as Grantaire follows Enjolras into the apartment. There’s no cruelty in their gazes, not even calculation, just curiosity.

“This is Grantaire,” Enjolras says, bluntly. “My business partner.” He crosses his arms, like an adolescent defying his parents.

Floppy brown curls sits up. “I’m Courfeyrac.”

Glasses nods at him. “Combeferre.”

“Combeferre is the one who taught me to cook so well, in college.”

The conversation is casual, as if they’re talking about cooking spaghetti bolognaise and not crystal methamphetamine. Combeferre’s smile is tight and forced, but Courfeyrac looks marginally friendlier. Grantaire feels out of place here, in his oversized hoodie and torn jeans that he hasn’t washed in God-knows-how-long. He smells like cigarettes. He needs a goddamn cigarette—his fingers twitch for one, and his attempt to smile back at them is more of an awkward baring of teeth.

“I had to tell them what’s been going on,” Enjolras continues. “Since I’m in danger, and I’ve put them in danger by association. They don’t approve.”

“But we also like Enjolras alive, so,” Courfeyrac chimes in.

Combeferre is silent, studying him with sympathetic eyes.

“Um, okay,” Grantaire says, for lack of anything else to say.

“You checked the apartment for bugs?” Enjolras asks, and at Combeferre’s answering nod: “Good.”

“What’s going on?” Grantaire asks. The burn for a cigarette has turned into something stronger. He thinks back to last night, lines of coke on the coffee table split between him, Feuilly, and Jehan so that he didn’t have to sleep. His nostrils went numb and Jehan wrote haikus in Sharpie marker all over the refrigerator door. Eponine crawled in through the window, kissed Grantaire on the cheek.

_‘Parnasse deserved what he got_ , she murmured in his ear, sprawling across both his and Feuilly’s laps, and Grantaire tried not to shudder.

Grantaire wonders how Enjolras’s roommates would react if he snorted coke off of their coffee table. It might be funny, and that’s what he’s thinking about when the next words leave Enjolras’s lips.

“I’m going to kill Thenardier.”

Combeferre and Courfeyrac wear grim expressions, at this, but Grantaire is the only one to visibly flinch.

…..

Thenardier is never alone and never unarmed. His revolver is as an essential part of him as his Rolex watch, polished and dark. Enjolras seethes with frustration. Grantaire’s only duty is to carry on and work as usual, pretend nothing is amiss. He understands why he’s not in on the finer details of whatever plan is forming inside his leader’s head, but at least Enjolras does not berate him for his vices. He’s not high for work—though his twice-an-hour cigarette breaks are less than convenient—and that’s that.

“You need to keep a weapon on you,” Enjolras tells him, instead. His hands grope along the waist of Grantaire’s jeans, because he knows Grantaire’s been lying about that—and Grantaire feels his breath hitch against his will. “Do you have a death wish?”

He tastes salt and blood in his mouth when he bites his tongue, to stop himself from telling Enjolras about how Feuilly had been playing  _Call of Duty_ or  _Halo_  or one of those other generic shooting games last night and Grantaire’s vision had gone black and his nails had left crescent-shaped cuts in his palms and he’d vomited on the living room carpet.

He doesn’t tell him that, and Enjolras hands him a gun, cold and heavy in his scabbed palm.

“Here. I got you one, too.” Enjolras gives him an encouraging smile that Grantaire cannot return. His shoulders are shaking and he’s afraid that if he opens his mouth that he’ll vomit on Enjolras’s living room floor, too. “Grantaire?”

He can hear a body crumple to the floor, but they’re both still standing, no, that can’t be right.

He brings his hands to his face, feels cool metal along his cheek, the line of his nose, gasping for breath.

“Grantaire?”

Enjolras’s hands on his shoulders, warm but not as comforting as they’re meant to be. One reaches up, plucks the gun from Grantaire’s loose fist.

“Is this better?” And it’s the gentlest that Enjolras has ever spoken to him, quiet and with just an edge of worry.

Grantaire nods but does not uncover his face. He wonders if he’s crying but he’s too busy trying to breathe to be able to tell.

He feels slender arms wrap around him, tentatively, and fuck he must be a wreck if Enjolras has resorted to physical affection to try and calm him. He’d like to return the embrace, because how long has he dreamt about touching the other man, even in this sort of simple way, but he can’t move, his limbs don’t belong to him anymore, don’t obey.

A shaky inhale, and a heavy exhale.

Enjolras does not attempt to press a gun into his possession again, although he is loath to allow Grantaire to leave his sight, now, insisting that if Grantaire is unable to protect himself then Enjolras will do it for him. Grantaire feels like a rather useless old pet dog, but he doesn’t trust himself to drive home, not yet, and Enjolras cooks them a few packets of ramen noodles to share.

“I’m shitty at actual cooking, ironically enough,” Enjolras says, in an attempt at levity.

It’s new and uncomfortable, and they might be dead any day now, but Grantaire minds less and less.

…..

“I’ve won.”

Through the phone, Enjolras’s voice is low and excited, every word laced with the thrill of victory. Grantaire can hear the smile on his face, which is lovely enough to imagine, and Grantaire pretends to care, too.

(He’d been planning on dying, waiting for it. He took the time to show Jehan and Feuilly where the money was kept in the board game boxes in the closet, and had instructed Jehan to make sure his sister got at least two hundred grand for her college education. He hasn’t prepared for winning, for living.)

“Thenardier’s dead?” The thought of Eponine gnaws away at his heart with jagged teeth.

“Come over for dinner. Combeferre is cooking, so it ought to be better than ramen. I can’t explain much more over the phone.”

Enjolras ends the call, and Grantaire watches his phone, warily, as he slides a cigarette from the pack in his pockets, lights it with a click, and takes a deep, necessary drag.

…..

Enjolras’s plan, it turned out, had not been a simple one. The trick of it was to lure Thenardier into a place that he didn’t control, without any of his henchmen following him. It had taken hours of research, according to Enjolras, making small talk with Claquesous and Babet to learn about old rivalries, masked in only casual interest. From them, he learned of the existence of a certain Jean Valjean, currently in residence at Happy Groves Nursing Home.

Valjean’s body was failing, had been for years, and that’s probably what made him willing to collaborate with Enjolras, against Thenardier. Valjean’s daughter lived with the Thenardiers for some time, years and years ago, and while no one spoke about what had happened, the rivalry went deeper than claiming territory for one’s drug business.

All in all, it was the right set of fucked-up circumstances that made Valjean agree to have a homemade-by-Combeferre device of C-4 strapped onto his wheelchair, and to set it off when he pressed the right switch. Thenardier had come to see him—the bait had been a private meeting with Agent Javert that Valjean had demanded, and been granted. Thenardier was afraid, and it made him reckless enough to rush headlong into Happy Groves Nursing Home without making sure it was safe, without making sure it was not a trap, and dying in a sudden blaze only five minutes later.

They eat dinner in the tidy living room while Enjolras relays the story. Combeferre’s lips are pursed—he’ll do anything for Enjolras, but he’s unhappy to have been dragged into this. Courfeyrac, at least, is making an attempt at a grin. Grantaire sits on the floor, staring into his plate at the remnants of his dinner. He isn’t hungry, doesn’t think he can keep anything down right now.

“We can sell wherever we want now, at least in the tri-state area,” Enjolras is saying. “We’re our own bosses. Imagine making the kind of money that Thenardier was.”

“I thought it wasn’t about the money,” Combeferre says carefully, and nudges Enjolras with his foot. “It was about being able to afford graduate school, that’s it. And exasperating the DEA. You’ve done those things.”

“But someone needs to take over,” Enjolras insists. “Addicts are addicts and they’ll buy it from someone. Why not me? My product is purer, safer, and I’ll run things differently than Thenardier did. No senseless killing or overblown threats. The government can waste more time and money trying to connect the dots—maybe it will help everyone see the futility of these corrupt drug prohibition laws, too.”

Grantaire takes a long swig of wine. It’s nice wine, something expensive and meant to be sipped, but Grantaire needs something to alleviate the sharp stabbing in his brain.

“I want out,” he says suddenly, entirely without meaning to.

Courfeyrac’s grin grows a little less crooked, but Enjolras’s eyes are wide, shocked.

Grantaire hadn’t meant to let the words slip out—he can already feel Enjolras’s disappointment slithering underneath his skin and into his bloodstream, but he ought to be used to that. He might as well keep going.

“I have more money than I know what to do with. There’s no point for me to stay involved.” He smirks. “I can buy all the overpriced paints and canvases, fancy clean needles and smack that I want” He raises his glass. “Addicts are addicts.” And drains it.

No one is smiling now.

“I think we should talk in private, Grantaire,” Enjolras says, in a voice that brooks no argument. He rises to his feet and hauls Grantaire up, too, gripping his forearm. They go downstairs and outside. There are no shady cars across the street watching them, for a change. Patron-Minette is likely scrambling—they have no natural leader to follow Thenardier. Grantaire remembers that he needs to find Eponine, and hopes that Jehan and Feuilly have already taken her in.

Grantaire lights a cigarette. To his surprise, Enjolras takes one, too. He doesn’t cough on the initial inhale like Grantaire expects him to. He can’t take his eyes off the man’s soft, pink lips around the paper filter. Grantaire smokes faster.

“Why do you really want out?” Enjolras asks. “Is this about Montparnasse?”

He shakes his head, exhales a plume of white smoke. “I’ve had enough,” Grantaire says simply. “I’m not cut out for this as a career choice.”

“But you’re my  _partner_. I thought we were in this together.”

Grantaire wants to scoff, but Enjolras is staring at him with those goddamned too-blue eyes, looking pleading and lost. And utterly unlike him. He wonders if it’s real or a fabrication, a manipulation. He’s not even sure if he cares because either way it means Enjolras  _wants him_  to stay and that’s better than nothing at all.

Enjolras tugs up one of Grantaire sleeves, runs a soft thumb over one of the fresher bruises.

“You don’t have to stop  _this_  either, not if you don’t want to. But I’ll even go to an NA meeting with you, if you want.”

Grantaire snorts. “So you can sell our shit to all the recovering addicts?”

“No. I don’t want to hurt anyone who’s making a sincere effort to better their lives,” Enjolras says, all seriousness.

“Once a fuck-up always a fuck-up.” Grantaire tugs his sleeve back down, and Enjolras finally relinquishes his arm.

“You don’t have to be out on the streets. I just want you in the lab, with me. You’re my partner,” Enjolras repeats.

Grantaire knows that he’s fighting a losing battle against Enjolras. Between his fingers, his cigarette has burned down to nearly nothing, and there is ash burning his fingertips. Enjolras takes it from him, grinds it into the pavement underneath his foot.

When they head back up to the apartment, they walk side by side, and Enjolras keeps a comforting hand on the small of Grantaire’s back.

And tomorrow it will be back to work.


End file.
